


Wordless Affections

by Madam_Red



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Action & Romance, Asphyxiation, Borderlands the Pre-Sequel - Freeform, Eventual Romance, Explosions, F/M, Mild Language, Nisha is a badass, Spoilers, nisha is shit with emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 03:18:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10822650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madam_Red/pseuds/Madam_Red
Summary: An older drabble I wrote in 2015 on my blog.Prompt; Who's the first "i love you" to the other?





	Wordless Affections

These odds like grim, even for them. Even as bullets streak through the air and blood splatters along the walls; droplets of red drifting off into the zero-gravity and hanging into space like beads of life.

A precious reminder that this is life, and this is death. That there are second chances. That you don’t get to try again. That this? This is war.

_Nisha’s always hated war._

It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You don’t live by the rules of your own gun. This isn’t just your own life your gambling with, this isn’t just the life of your opponent. It’s larger then this. It’s overwhelming.

And _fuck if she doesn’t love it._

They’ve split up— it’s the best way to reach the control panels of all those access points before they get discovered. Before Zarpedon realizes that they’ve got a plan at all.

Wilhelm and Athena have gone forward first, hitting the largest control panel with the heaviest of their fire power. It’s a distraction. A good one.

Claptrap and Aurelia? They’ve gone for the target dead set in the middle, it’ll be stripped of its support from the first teams attack, and easiest to wipe out.

But Nisha and Timothy? They’re heading for the panel the fairest out, removed from the other two panels. It’s supports are sustained, and unaffected by the other two panels. But they have to time their attack just right— there are no oxygen reserves along the way.

Atleast that had been the plan.

Then everything had fucked up.

They’ve lost contact to teams one and two— Nisha has no idea if they’ve hit their targets or not. The echo-silence is unexpected. She isn’t even sure if Jack is still alive, fuck.

Nisha is no solider. She’ a bandit. She holds no loyalty to this. She couldn’t care less if this place burns to hell. If Pandora survives? Who the fuck cares. The place was no home to her.

But— that being said? Even she has a code of honour. Twisted as it is. It’s blood for blood, and her team? They’ve taken bullets for her. They’ve hauled her ass off the ground with the same hand she’s returned the favour for. She’s loyal to them. They all have their reasons for this suicide mission.

Some of them need the money.

Some of them want to save lives.

Some of them just want to have fun.

Nisha throws her weight in to the punch she slams into the face of her enemy, and the helmet? It cracks. She snarls at the commander before her, wild in all the ways you’ve never expected of a simple bandit from the dirt of Pandora. She tells herself it’s the adrenaline of another kill. She tells herself that it’s the blood-lust bounding her head as she empties her clip into the side of the legion’s member’s head.

She tells herself it isn’t the sight of Timothy being strangled in the background that makes her roar like a monster ripped from the depths of her own personal hell. Her boots crunch into the shattered debris as she springs from the control panel, plasma core blinking a confirmation for detonation. It’s her whip that lashes around the neck of her next victim, and it’s nothing short of uncensored wrath that has her yanking the solider off Timothy’s unconscious body.

She hits her trigger, and watches with a twisted sense of pleasure as the legion gargles out his last breath to the electric shock of her whip. But his body is left to convulse on it’s own, a bullet hole smoking in it’s temple as she drops to her knee’s beside Timothy.

His head rolls to the side as she hauls his body up into her arms, and her blood stained fingers smear red along his bruised throat as she tries to find his pulse. It’s weak. But it’s there.

She breaths out a raspy sigh of relief, fingers tightening as she bows her head over his frame. He’s wounded, but no more so then she is. The woman takes a moment to cup her fingers around the side of his face, for the umpteenth time imaging what it might have looked like before his surgeries. Probably ugly, or like an idiot.

Her heroic idiot none the less. He’s grown so much through this, and he hasn’t even given himself credit for it. She’s proud of him. Even if the thought never leaves her lips. To loose him now? It isn’t something she wants to entertain.

Nisha slides a hand through the blood to yank his belt loose from his hips, and to instead strap it around his left thigh. She pulls it tight, cutting off the blood flow to the nasty wound on lower leg. Her knife is used to rip a length of cloth from her tank top— the cleanest thing she has unfortunately. She doesn’t have time to bandage him up properly. This will have to do for now. She ties the makeshift bandage around the wound, before lifting her eyes to the control core in the centre of the room. They’re like sitting ducks here.

If Jack detonates with them still here? They wont survive the impact.

Nisha huffs out her breath, nails digging into Timothy’s jacket as she hauls his weight up and over her shoulder. She staggers under the force of it, and idly thinks to remind him to lay off the sweets next trip to Condordia.

If they make it that far.

If there is ever another trip to Condordia.

She activates his Ozkit, and hauls ass out into the unfinished maintenance bay. In the distance? She can hear metal grinding, the station groaning softly around her. It’s silent. Too silent. It doesn’t bode well. But at-least that gives her a straight path to their team’s original rendezvous point. If it hasn’t been compromised.

It isn’t easy to travel through low gravity with extra weight— the thrusters on her Oz’ kit eat up twice the oxygen one jump would require. It wont be long before she’s depleted. Yet, it doesn’t stop her. As if a little thing like asphyxiation would. Her vision sways as she stumbles up the platform to a jump pad. An idle thought in the back of her mind about how much Timothy hates them. Her fingers tighten around his unconscious frame, and she re-shoulders his weight before dragging her battered body into a run. Her muscles are starting to grow heavy, and the sting in them is no doubt from the build up of acid— all from the lack of oxygen.

She pushes her body off the edge, and merely prays that her aim through her blurry vision is still true. She can do this. Out of all of them? She’s known for being able to hold her breath the longest. Probably the only reason she volunteered to go to the farthest plasma chamber.

It’s only when her body slams into the receiving platform, that Nisha is half aware of the fact she’s landed at all. She locks her arms around Timothy as they roll a few feet. Somewhere above her, she can make out the alarmed face of Athena hovering above her. Oh good. The shield lesbian survived.

She’s distantly aware that Athena is prying the doppelganger out of her arms, and then another face is hovering above her. It looks like Wilhelm, but if she’s being honest? Nisha can’t see much right now. It isn’t until there is a hiss of air and oxygen is being flooded back into her helmet that she’s realizes they’re trying to revive her.

Her body arches, and she’s slamming a fist down onto the metal platform beside her as she gasps for her breath. Her lungs burn, and the headache she has is second to none. She vaguely remembers something Springs told them when they first landed on Elpis. Exploding eyes. Aha, that would be funny to see.

Nisha relaxes back into the cold metal, panting as she tries to catch her breath. Fuck. That was awesome. She grins, and there is a deep laughter from the cyborg somewhere above her.

“Crazy bitch,” Is all she can make out from his compliment.

When her brain is caught up with the fact that she’s alive? Nisha is hauling herself up into a sitting position and glancing around for her unfortunate partner. She can feel a hand on her shoulder, and words trying to tell her to relax. Ah, that’s a joke. Her? Relax?

She catches sight of Aurelia tending to Timothy to the side, and shrugs off the hand on her shoulder. Against the resistance of her muscles, and most likely to the amusement of her team? She crawls over until she’s able to drop her weight beside Timothy. A shaky hand ruffles itself through his hair and Aurelia is giving her an almost knowing expression. Not that she’s paying attention to the bitch.

Ugh, fuck them all. Whatever.

She’ll yell at them later. All she cares for is the bicoloured eyes that blink up at her warily, and the smile that pulls on the corner of his lips when he catches sight of her. Nisha slides her hand down to hold the side of his face, unable to resist the urge to smile back at him. Yeah. The cold-hearted bandit gig she’s been maintaining up until this point is effectively lost when she bows her head to press a kiss to the side of Timothy’s lips.

“I, ah— love you,” Is whispered out against her flesh. His voice is raspy, and it sounds like his voice modulator might be broken. It makes his words sound octaves higher then she’s use to hearing. Regardless? Nisha tilts her head and gives him another kiss. This one is desperate and rough in all the right ways. It’s the only way she’s able to express her own affection.

_If she’s lucky, he’ll understand what she means._


End file.
